


The Effect of Dancing on Team Synchronisation: A Study

by the coffee cup (oakleaf)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Dancing, Gen, Spice Girls (mentioned), vaguely team bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-10
Updated: 2016-01-10
Packaged: 2018-05-12 22:26:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5683114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oakleaf/pseuds/the%20coffee%20cup
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><a href="http://fenrisfens.tumblr.com/post/136236819639/headcanon-that-at-some-point-suga-teaches-the-team">Prompt from fenrisfens </a>:<br/>Headcanon that at some point Suga teaches the team a dance routine to a Spice Girls song as “synchronization training.”<br/>“Somehow” videos get sent to the other teams and only Kenma believes Suga started it.</p><p>Featuring: devious Sugawara, dancing Karasuno and the bewilderment of other volleyball nerds</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Effect of Dancing on Team Synchronisation: A Study

“What,” Hinata just kind of emits, keening a bit like a kettle does as the water begins to boil.

Sugawara is somewhat impressed. He’s never seen that expression on Hinata’s face before, a blend between incredulous and confused and just plain shocked. He’s seen it on the faces of everyone who sees the insane fast attack for the first time, but not on Hinata.

“You wanted to try and work together, right? I came up with a solution. We’re having trouble with timing, so we should learn how to synchronise. So hence dancing,” Sugawara says, beaming.

Hinata doesn’t quite know what he’s entered into but beams all the same, because he trusts Sugawara.

(In hindsight, he’ll come to realise that although Daichi is the scary one, Suga is the one to be afraid of. Especially when he beams at you.)

It turns out that Hinata is actually really bad at coordination and Sugawara is surprisingly good at dancing. Hinata finds it… kind of fun, really. The dancing thing isn’t too bad, even if it is based off a Western female pop group and Sugawara keeps shouting _LEFT. LEFT, HINATA. YOUR OTHER LEFT_.

It takes them two practice sessions for Hinata to learn the steps, another two for them to learn to do the same steps at the same time. When Hinata finally gets around to asking about the movements themselves, Sugawara can’t decide whether to throw in the towel. He ends up just yelling _THAT’S JUST HOW THIS DANCE WORKS PLEASE DON’T EVER QUESTION IT AGAIN I’M SORRY_.

By this time, all the others have figured out that something is going on. After all, the sight of Hinata and Sugawara dancing and not practicing in a corner is a little harder to miss, as is the increasingly obnoxious music which plays day after day.

The shouts of _Hinata when I said jump I meant just bounce_ and _Hinata that’s not your left leg_ and _step behind, put your right leg behind your left, HOW HAVE YOU NEVER DONE THE GRAPEVINE_ become gradually less common, but never fail to bring a smile or a snicker.

Sugawara thinks he’s never been closer to despair; not even when Karasuno fit the name of the Flightless Crows. Trying to get Hinata to dance properly, in time, was like herding over-enthusiastic cats and _Hinata that’s not what you do with your arm CAREFUL please don’t take off my head WHAT ARE YOU EVEN DOING._

Coach Ukai and Daichi would object more if Hinata and Sugawara weren’t showing remarkable improvement in their coordination. As it stands, only Tsukishima even bothers to be bothered anymore.

It takes strangely little effort to convince the other members of the team to join in, after they see the monumental improvement. This may be due in part to Suga-san’s beaming smile which Daichi knows full well means there is no point in resisting, combined with Hinata’s sheer exuberance.

Tsukishima’s the only one resisting, but even he knows when to give up – after suitable persuasion by Sugawara and Daichi, and Hinata ambushing him one too many times in the hallways. Even then it’s somewhat grudging, because there’s no way he’s going willingly dance to Spice Girls.

(Hinata barrelling down a hallways towards him shouting “DANCE WITH MEEEEEEEEE” with complete disregard to the people staring ranks pretty high on the list of things he doesn’t want to remember. Now there are **rumours**.)

Tsukishima also turns out to be bad at dancing, but not as bad as Tanaka. Daichi is only slightly better than Tanaka, but also more liable to move the wrong limb. Nishinoya turns out to be pretty good at dancing, but sometimes (okay, quite often) a little over-enthusiastic in his dancing.

Kageyama is surprisingly a prodigy at dancing, picking up the moves almost immediately. Asahi tends to fall apart when they stopped being synchronised, but does quite well on his own.

Yamaguchi is perhaps the most hopeless of the lot, prone to flailing whenever given instructions. In this case, he is lucky that Sugawara has gone through much the same process with Hinata and knows how to deal with it.

Ennoshita has good control over his limbs, but sometimes hesitates over the moves. Narita and Kinoshita both dance reasonably well, with none of the spectacular failures of Hinata and Yamaguchi, but none of the finesse that Kageyama and Nishinoya have.

It becomes standard for the entire team to practice a routine after stretches, before the practice drills start. Soon, they are adept at several different routines, and much too adept at obeying when Sugawara yells _SHAKE THOSE HIPS LIKE YOU MEAN IT_.

(Yachi and Kiyoko seem to mysteriously disappear whenever the dancing gets started, though. Repressed laughter can be heard if one listens carefully. Takeda somehow manages to miss the dancing every single time, until he finally sees it and almost faints out of surprise.)

Sugawara counts it as a win when Coach Ukai stops even looking phased, no longer shakes his head at their warm-up dancing. He is even more pleasantly surprised when he overhears Daichi humming ‘Wannabe’ as they were doing homework together, almost unconsciously.

Tsukishima, on the other hand, almost murders everyone on the team after Yamaguchi reveals to everyone that he has been unconsciously humming ‘If U Can’t Dance’.

At this point, Tsukishima can’t even honestly say he hates the dancing anymore. Ever since Sugawara made him actually put effort into participate with that damned why-would-you-ever-disagree smile, he found it too much effort to even try and continue hating it. Especially if that meant trying to overcome the enthusiasm of Hinata and Nishinoya and Tanaka. And… well, nobody can judge him, because they’re even more enthusiastic about the whole thing.

The dancing becomes normal, as does the easy synchronisation that comes with the steady beat in the background. It does translate to better coordination on the court, with the synchronised attack now working better than ever. Hinata and Sugawara were getting closer and closer to producing a functional quick attack.

Sugawara smiles, because the whole dancing thing went even better than he thought it would. (Tsukishima decides to make a strategic retreat in the face of that smile.)

Karasuno was well on track to becoming national champions. That part was unexpected, but not nearly as much as the video which showed Karasuno’s flawless dance routines of various Spice Girls songs, as circulated (most likely) by Sugawara.

\---

Kenma is really not that surprised that Hinata is terrible at dancing. At least, that’s how he had interpreted _IF U CANT DANCE IS SUCH A HARD DANCE TO MASTER at least today i didn’t trip over anyone :o_. He is used to strange texts from Hinata, but _Karasuno is going to kick your butts next game Suga came up with an awesome new training regime dancing is really difficult_ followed by _oops i didn’t just tell you that_ made the list of strangest things Hinata had ever sent him.

Dancing? Dancing. Kenma has never been gladder that he doesn’t attend Karasuno.

(Kuroo seems to take his sudden profession that he is glad that he attends Nekoma as an excuse to initiate a puppy pile, which Kenma blames on Hinata. He blames everything on Hinata recently.)

Kenma thinks about it once or twice more, but he dismisses it out of hand. He doesn’t get Hinata, doesn’t get Karasuno. But if there’s anyone who can make dancing into a training exercise, it would probably be Karasuno. They didn’t make sense in the first place, so doing something illogical would be somewhat more rational if it were Karasuno.

(When the video comes through, Kemna only slightly chokes on his drink. He blames that on Hinata, too.)

(On the other hand, he’ll have to thank Hinata for the priceless face which Kuroo makes upon seeing the video of Karasuno dancing. The cackling, not so much.)

\---

Akaashi wonders what it is now which has made Bokuto make his this-is-so-funny-you-have-to-look-at-this laugh. He expected the “AKAASHI YOU HAVE TO COME LOOK AT THIS” but not the tinny western pop music which comes out of Bokuto’s phone, and certainly not the image of the Karasuno team dancing.

Dancing quite well, in fact, with good synchronisation and control over some frankly ridiculous dance moves.

Soon the whole team is crowded around them, watching these figures they have come to know through the training camp, dance to an impossibly chirpy pop song.

“IS THAT GLASSES-CHAN DANCING? HE ALMOST LOOKS LIKE HE DOESN’T WANT TO MURDER EVERYONE THERE.

“SUGA-CHAN REALLY KNOWS HOW TO SHAKE THOSE HIPS.

“HEY HEY HEY AKAASHI DO YOU THINK-“

Akaashi cuts Bokuto off with a firm “NO”, perhaps some of his horror leaking through.

There is no way he is going to dance, not even if Karasuno is doing it for who knows what reason and not practicing volleyball instead.

(He has to admit that Karasuno has got style, though. They made the moves look almost effortless. In a word, they looked _cool_.)

\---

Oikawa looked like the entire world had been handed to him on a silver plate – that is, not that different from usual. The maniacal laugh was a little disturbing though, Iwaizumi thought. Anything that made Oikawa this happy had to be bad news for someone else.

“IWA-CHAN, COME LOOK AT OUR CUTE LITTLE KOUHAI DANCING!”

Iwaizumi wanders over, expecting to see footage of the first or second years doing weird movements or whatever it was that passed for dancing these days.

He almost spits out the water he is drinking when he sees Karasuno dancing, Kageyama in the forefront. They were dancing some sort of modern routine, which seemed almost like a long lost mating ritual or something.

“Where did you get this?” Iwaizumi chokes out, almost afraid.

“I kept getting messages from this unknown email address DON’T WORRY I DIDN’T OPEN THEM I KNOW THE WHOLE CYBER SAFETY THING but then Matsukawa told me he’d got a message from a friend from middle school who’s now in Tokyo and… anyway, isn’t this song kinda cool?”

Oikawa does not think it is cool one week later when everyone on the Seijou team keeps playing ‘Wannabe’ on their phones, with the video of the Karasuno team. He thinks they’re mocking him, but he can’t be sure.

They probably are. They were meanies in that way.

\---

Whenever other teams confront Karasuno about _that_ dancing video, they blame Sugawara.

Sugawara beams, all sunshine and rainbows and do-you-really-believe-I-would-do-something-like-that and everyone seems to buy it.

(Apart from Kenma, that is, who would have suspected Sugawara – even without Hinata’s texts to prove absolute guilt. But hey, he’s always had excellent observation skills.)

Only Karasuno seems to realise that the beam means _run away as quickly as you can_.

Karasuno learns that the best way to combat scepticism is to ~~let it go~~ ignore it. After winning several games against the disbelievers, they have learned that the judgement of the other teams means nothing, not when their skills and synchronisation on the court means their dancing was **justified**.

\---

EXTRAS!

Their opponents looked at Karasuno warily.

“I hear they used to be called the Fallen Champions, the Flightless Crows,” one of them muttered to another.

The other, blissfully unaware of recent going-ons, whispered back, “What changed?”

The first turned to the other with horror in his eyes as the music started in the background.

“THAT.”

 

On the other side of the court, Sugawara smiles proudly at Daichi.

“See? The dancing was a good idea. It improved our coordination, control over our bodies, and works wonderfully well as psychological warfare. What more could you want?”

 

 

(Elsewhere, an executive of a large entertainment company rubs his hands in glee upon seeing footage of Karasuno’s ~~in~~ famous dance routine. These children had potential.)

**Author's Note:**

> I started watching some Spice Girls videos to see what their dancing was like. I… I got too scared to do too much research, so please forgive me if my descriptions (as vague as they are) violated your memories of Spice Girls dances.  
> Yes, in this they dance the original Spice Girl dances a la the live show performances.
> 
> Here’s a link to [ 'If U Can't Dance' ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZy1jr1xRQg) which I worked off.
> 
> Thanks again to fenrisfens for allowing me to play around with the headcannon!


End file.
